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“We’re here because we have something to say and we’re no longer afraid to say it.”

Guess what?

I have something to say and I was never afraid to articulate it, either, Catholic Vote.

A year ago, last July to be exact, I began my studies at the Pontificia in Salamanca, Spain. The experience inspired me to maintain a chronicle of my time well spent. It was my most empowered moment, one that I couldn’t sustain for several reasons. But the events of recent weeks are giving rise to a sense of responsibility. It is said one voice is really a hundred. A PSA produced by CatholicVotes just pissed me off. You can view the clip on my blog post. I encourage you to view it because we need to add a few more hundred singular voices to the mix. That CatholicVotes even felt the need to produce such a piece is, in a word, unacceptable. It is just fear masked as piety. Again.

If I can see the contradiction of said “faith-based values,” why can’t others? If God made us all in his image, then his image is as complex and diverse as we are on Earth.

I’m Catholic. I vote. And I refuse, like millions of other folks, to be marginalized any further. Here’s the return of Confession of a MediaJor. Let the fire and brimstone be hurled by someone else at the pulpit. I want to hear tolerance and compassion from the mount again.

For a long while, many of us were alone and/or judged in this battle for equality. The SCOTUS decision on same sex marriage does not mean the faithful’s beliefs will be censored in any way. While the comments voiced in this PSA still carry the stink of bigotry and intolerance, these people should know that most of us in the LGBT are not going to retaliate or harm anyone who holds steadfast to their separatist beliefs informed by religion. (Despite the fact that many of us have suffered some form of bigotry or violence for being homosexual or transgender.)

No one expects this momentum of change will not continue without a fight. But, the faithful should know we will defend to the end our legally given right to marry because we have the law on our side. That is our want and our responsibility in the bigger issue that is dividing this nation through extremism. We must not only fight to protect our rights. We must fight to protect the division between church and state.